Klarinet Archive - Posting 001000.txt from 1999/09

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: [kl] re: 2025 Mozart
Date: Tue, 28 Sep 1999 16:11:19 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.09
> Subj: Re: [kl] re: 2025 Mozart

> I have followed all of this with interest. It does seem to me that older
> methods of recording obscured and altered the characteristic sound of the
> clarinet much more than more modern methods. I would be interested to know
> if certain overtones in the sound cannot be picked up by older recording
> equipment. It seems that, as recording technology improves, the recorded
> sound quality of even the worst of players improves.
>
> Patty Smith

You are correct Patty, but it appears to me to be much more than simply
a question of sound character. Playing styles change very gradually over
the years but contemporary ears are very sensitive to the playing styles
of 1920's and 1930s.

It is not dissimilar to watching a movie from the silent film days. It
is true that the absence of sound created a very special acting technique
that is very lampoonable what with its big arm and body motions, but
styles from the early 1930s would be unsuitable for today's acting
techniques. Watch the 1935 version of King Kong and see if any actor
today would function in that style. They wouldn't get work if they did.

Consider recordings made of Caruso in the early 1900s. Sure the sound
is awful, but, to contemporary ears, the entire method of singing sounds
all wrong and a lot of that has to do with phrasing and vocal
production techniques that are no longer in use.

That is why, 100 years from now, Marcellus' recording will sound stilted
and old fashioned, no matter how effective it was when it was recorded
new. Besides, sound production techniques will continue to improve so
that recordings that are a world's wonder today will be dull and lifeless
in 75 years, at least as contrasted with the new ones being produced then.

I have an old recording of Beethoven 5 done by Toscannini and the NBC
around 1943 or so. And not only is the sound (which sounded wonderful
to me then) awkward and fuzzy, the whole style of playing appears to
be old-fashioned and fuddy-duddy.

All this is by way of saying that the acoustical quality is only
part of the story. In effect, if a player as great as Thurston
or Bellison were to suddenly reappear today at the height of their
powers, they would have to learn a different style of playing to
match their contemporary colleagues, or else they wouldn't get work.

>
>
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=======================================
Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
=======================================

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